Anyone involved in search can have little doubt as to the impact of changes in devices and user behaviour on search engine marketing. Barracuda Digital’s Martin Dinham recently spoke to Figaro Digital on the subject, read what he had to say here.

]]>http://www.barracuda-digital.co.uk/changing-user-behaviour-search/feed/0Google and the European Commission monopoly debatehttp://www.barracuda-digital.co.uk/google-european-commission-monopoly-debate/
http://www.barracuda-digital.co.uk/google-european-commission-monopoly-debate/#commentsTue, 13 Jan 2015 11:49:20 +0000http://www.barracuda-digital.co.uk/?p=5418Barracuda Digitals Martin Dinham was recently interviewed by CMO.com on the issue of the EU’s monopoly investigation into Google. You can see the article, including Martins comments at http://www.cmo.com/articles/2015/1/12/is_the_eu_about_to_t.html

]]>http://www.barracuda-digital.co.uk/google-european-commission-monopoly-debate/feed/0FIGARO DIGITAL SEARCH SEMINARhttp://www.barracuda-digital.co.uk/figaro-digital-search-seminar-2/
http://www.barracuda-digital.co.uk/figaro-digital-search-seminar-2/#commentsMon, 15 Dec 2014 11:35:08 +0000http://www.barracuda-digital.co.uk/?p=5370Our presentation is now online – if you would like to see the video of Martin Dinham on The last 10 years of Google, go to the Figaro Digital website at http://www.figarodigital.co.uk/Video.aspx?v=9ec0f3d0-7afb-40d1-b12b-bb363bfe0140

]]>http://www.barracuda-digital.co.uk/figaro-digital-search-seminar-2/feed/0Figaro Digital Search Seminarhttp://www.barracuda-digital.co.uk/figaro-digital-search-seminar/
http://www.barracuda-digital.co.uk/figaro-digital-search-seminar/#commentsFri, 12 Dec 2014 12:37:12 +0000http://www.barracuda-digital.co.uk/?p=5364 We were proud to talk at yesterdays Figaro Digital Search Seminar in London and thoroughly enjoyed the event. Barracuda Digitals Martin Dinham spoke about the evolution of Google over the past 10 years and how this has impacted SEO. Our talk was well received and we had some interesting discussions over the course of […]

We were proud to talk at yesterdays Figaro Digital Search Seminar in London and thoroughly enjoyed the event. Barracuda Digitals Martin Dinham spoke about the evolution of Google over the past 10 years and how this has impacted SEO.

]]>http://www.barracuda-digital.co.uk/figaro-digital-search-seminar/feed/0Barracuda on the importance of product descriptions in boosting conversions.http://www.barracuda-digital.co.uk/barracuda-importance-product-descriptions-boosting-conversions/
http://www.barracuda-digital.co.uk/barracuda-importance-product-descriptions-boosting-conversions/#commentsFri, 05 Dec 2014 11:10:52 +0000http://www.barracuda-digital.co.uk/?p=5359As we hit the full swing of the festive season, retailers are looking at every angle to increase their competitiveness and differentiate themselves from the competition. We’ve been published in Digital Marketing Magazine talking about how pimping your product descriptions is a way of doing just this. Read the article here.

As we hit the full swing of the festive season, retailers are looking at every angle to increase their competitiveness and differentiate themselves from the competition. We’ve been published in Digital Marketing Magazine talking about how pimping your product descriptions is a way of doing just this. Read the article here.

]]>http://www.barracuda-digital.co.uk/barracuda-importance-product-descriptions-boosting-conversions/feed/0Come and Hear Us Speak With Figaro Digitalhttp://www.barracuda-digital.co.uk/come-and-hear-us/
http://www.barracuda-digital.co.uk/come-and-hear-us/#commentsFri, 28 Nov 2014 11:00:39 +0000http://www.barracuda-digital.co.uk/?p=5350 Come and Hear Us Speak With Figaro Digital ! Here at Barracuda we’re very pleased that we’ve been invited to speak at the Figaro Digital Search Seminar in London on December 11th. The event, details of which can be seen here http://www.figarodigital.co.uk/seminars.aspx?pkEventID=140efae5-76a9-427c-a3db-1c742a921c44 brings together experts in search engine marketing from brands and agencies for […]

Barracuda will be represented by Martin Dinham, who will be talking about the evolution of Google over the past decade based on the experience shared by him and the Barracuda team and how this relates to modern day best practice where SEO in particular is concerned, including reference to “real world” experience with our clients.

For further details on the event and to register, please see the Figaro Digital website, alternatively you can contact Martin direct on martin@barracuda-digital.co.uk.

]]>http://www.barracuda-digital.co.uk/come-and-hear-us/feed/0How to share & add Google Business View on your website.http://www.barracuda-digital.co.uk/share-add-google-business-view-website/
http://www.barracuda-digital.co.uk/share-add-google-business-view-website/#commentsWed, 26 Nov 2014 12:09:12 +0000http://www.barracuda-digital.co.uk/?p=5331Google have finally updated the “New” Google Maps to allow you to embed Google Business View on your website. The process for sharing and embedding tours is now as easy as 1-2-3… 1. Find a view in a tour on Google Maps you desire for the starting point.2. Click the “gear” icon at the lower […]

]]>http://www.barracuda-digital.co.uk/share-add-google-business-view-website/feed/0How analysing bounces can help increase conversions and profithttp://www.barracuda-digital.co.uk/analysing-bounces-can-help-increase-conversions-profit/
http://www.barracuda-digital.co.uk/analysing-bounces-can-help-increase-conversions-profit/#commentsTue, 21 Oct 2014 16:23:13 +0000http://www.barracuda-digital.co.uk/?p=5249Unless a dramatic increase in the bounce rate occurs, marketers generally don’t worry about these visits since they are considered a natural part of the online shopping process. WHAT IF half of potential customers popped their heads into a real-life shop and left without looking at any products? As the shop owner, you’d want to […]

]]>Unless a dramatic increase in the bounce rate occurs, marketers generally don’t worry about these visits since they are considered a natural part of the online shopping process.

WHAT IFhalf of potential customers popped their heads into a real-life shop and left without looking at any products? As the shop owner, you’d want to know why.

Many of these visitors have come to your shop with a purpose in mind and money to spend. As an online shopkeeper, you should be paying special attention to these visits. After all, these people have been inspired enough by Google’s descriptions, social platforms or referrals to click-through to your website. However, once they’ve arrived, they have not been inspired enough to stay and look around. It is therefore important to think of these bounced visits as ‘warm data’; those who have a degree of interest in your website.

This ‘warm data’ presents itself as a series of missed revenue opportunities:

Direct revenue from the visitor themselves

Revenue from their future return visits

Revenue from their friends’ visits

Their friends’ return visits

Loss of revenue from the advertising and marketing spend in getting these visitors to the website in the first place

AN EXAMPLE:

We found that if a client of ours reduced their bounce rate by 5% this Christmas they would get an additional 358 orders which amounts to £17,656 which is approximately 1.41% of the total revenue for that Christmas period. If this bounce rate was reduced by 5% over the whole year this would mean an extra £68,395 –1.23% of the total year’s revenue.

Finally, improving your website as a means to decrease these bounces may well increase average order values.

Bounces may affect organic search rankings:

AlthoughGoogle denies that they are using bounce rate in their ranking algorithms, it is likely that they are using a similar metric from their own user data from the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages). This is so that Google can tell how relevant a website is to someone’s search and this, in turn, would affect the website’s ranking. Specifically, the rankings would be affected when someone clicks a result in the SERPs and then clicks back to the SERPs, presumably after a short amount of time.

In order to lower your bounce rate, you’ll need to

review and analyse it…

1. ANALYSE THE NON-RETUNING BOUNCES

To pinpoint who did not ‘like’ your site you should analyse these visitors using this advanced segment across a variety of dimensions listed below. This will help you to understand what aspects of the site are not working effectively for you.

b. REVIEW BOUNCE BY DEVICETo pinpoint site issues, it might be that the desktop experience is good, but mobile is a concern. You should then explore exactly what it is about the mobile experience which might be affecting bounce rate, for example page load speed and / or poor navigation.

c. REVIEW BOUNCE BY CHANNEL

Look for the channels which deliver high bounce rates. Perhaps it was mainly Twitter and therefore you should check your content messaging; maybe it doesn’t match what’s on the landing page. Maybe the same problem also lies with specific PPC ads.

If many of these non-returning bounced visits are Direct (and therefore these visits should be interested in your site) this probably means you are not tagging your campaigns. By not tagging your campaigns, this makes the traffic appear Direct when it is not.d. INVESTIGATE DEMOGRAPHIC DATA

Which demographic are they? Perhaps mainly males are bouncing from your site and therefore you need to make it more appealing to this group. Or perhaps older people are more likely to bounce. You can find ideas on how to make your site more appealing to older people in our free white paper.Specifically this paper look at how retailers can increase conversions and spend in the run-up to Christmas.

e. EXPLORETEMPORAL DATA

Is there a specific time that these people bounce? It might be the case that every summer the bounce rate increases. This may be because of the competitive nature of the products you sell and people are more likely to be browsing many websites for season specific items (e.g. flipflops). You can then direct any messaging which has a competitive advantage to this time-period. f. REVIEW KEYWORDS

Did these non-returning bounces come through generic or brand keywords? You could see which keywords and their respective pages are causing the most bounces and optimise the page accordingly.

You should comparethis segment to the visitors who have added an item or items to their basket (but who have not necessarily made a purchase). That way you can compare data from 2 opposing groups. Then check the Page Values for this ‘Added to Basket’ segment in Google Analytics, examine the pages with the higher values and see if there is anything about these pages which may be encouraging purchase, for example, persuasive content. However, if the non-returning bounced visitors are seeing these pages to an equal degree, the reasons may be more related to external factors.

]]>http://www.barracuda-digital.co.uk/analysing-bounces-can-help-increase-conversions-profit/feed/0Barracuda Digital Panguin Tool Updated for Penguin 3.0http://www.barracuda-digital.co.uk/barracuda-digital-panguin-tool-updated-penguin-3-0/
http://www.barracuda-digital.co.uk/barracuda-digital-panguin-tool-updated-penguin-3-0/#commentsTue, 21 Oct 2014 11:58:44 +0000http://www.barracuda-digital.co.uk/?p=5241So, it appears that its official – Google have released the latest and long awaited iteration of their Penguin algorithm update, see https://www.seroundtable.com/google-penguin-3-19313.html for further details. Penguin is designed to reward sites for having “good quality” backlink profiles and to penalise those that, in the eyes of Google, have spammy or irrelevant backlink profiles. The […]

So, it appears that its official – Google have released the latest and long awaited iteration of their Penguin algorithm update, see https://www.seroundtable.com/google-penguin-3-19313.html for further details. Penguin is designed to reward sites for having “good quality” backlink profiles and to penalise those that, in the eyes of Google, have spammy or irrelevant backlink profiles. The latest update, tagged as Penguin 3.0 is the first this year and is likely to have webmasters anxiously awaiting any potential change in rankings for their sites that may result.

At Barracuda Digital, we designed our “Panguin” tool specifically to enable website owners to track the various Google updates (both “Panda” and Penguin” varieties) and the effect that they have on their individual websites. The tool already incorporates Penguin 3.0, so users who wish to quickly and easily assess if the latest update has had any effect (positive or negative) on their websites can do this quickly and easily using the Panguin tool at http://www.barracuda-digital.co.uk/panguin-tool/ . The tool is fully integrated with your site analytics, completely independent and does not require you to give access to your data to anyone.

]]>http://www.barracuda-digital.co.uk/barracuda-digital-panguin-tool-updated-penguin-3-0/feed/0UK Search Awards 2014: Third time lucky!http://www.barracuda-digital.co.uk/barracuda-nominated-uk-search-awards-2014/
http://www.barracuda-digital.co.uk/barracuda-nominated-uk-search-awards-2014/#commentsFri, 03 Oct 2014 11:33:24 +0000http://www.barracuda-digital.co.uk/?p=5193Barracuda Digital are delighted to announce that, for the third year running, they have been shortlisted for a UK Search Award. The awards are the premier UK event celebrating the very best in SEO, PPC, Digital and Content marketing within the UK. Barracuda have been shortlisted for their Link Watchdog tool, an extension to their […]

Barracuda Digital are delighted to announce that, for the third year running, they have been shortlisted for a UK Search Award. The awards are the premier UK event celebrating the very best in SEO, PPC, Digital and Content marketing within the UK.

Barracuda have been shortlisted for their Link Watchdog tool, an extension to their long running and much lauded Panguin tool, http://www.barracuda-digital.co.uk/panguin-tool. Link Watchdog enables businesses to build on the existing information around the impact of a Google update on their website that is available through Panguin and to examine inbound links to their website that may have affected this. Link Watchdog categorises links into various levels of risk using our own proprietary algorithm based on our in depth understanding of Google. In particular it flags those that are likely to give a high risk of the site being penalised by Google. These sites can then be added automatically through the tool to a disavow file and uploaded to Google. Link Watchdog is currently in beta with a number of selected Barracuda clients pending general release.

Martin Dinham, Sales Director at Barracuda Digital comments that “Link Watchdog is the natural next evolution from our Panguin tool and continues our theme of developing technology based on our years of Google consultancy to help our clients best take advantage of the evolution in Google to benefit their online marketing activity. We’re very excited about the awards – please wish us luck !”

The UK Search Award ceremony takes place on November 6th, get in touch if you would like further details on Link Watchdog or any of our other services.